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Relationship between environmental and geographic factors and the distribution of exotic fishes in tributaries of the balsas river basin, Mexico

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Abstract

The alteration of aquatic ecosystems and increasing aquarium fish trade with exotic species is promoting the presence and invasion of these species in large river systems, with the consequent loss of native biodiversity and the homogenization of aquatic systems. The Chontalcuatlan-Amacuzac hydrological system belonging to the biogeographical province of the Balsas River is one of the main regions in Mexico devoted to the breeding and rearing of aquarium fish, where the improper handling of these organisms has caused their escape to adjacent hydrological systems and, together with urban and industrial pollution, are changing schemas and levels of regional biodiversity. As a first approximation to determine these effects, we evaluate a segment of 140 km of this hydrological system through surveys in 12 sites during the time of major climatic and flow stability, and relating environmental variables with the distribution and abundance of fish. Also, the structure of fish assemblages was assessed by means of similarity and multivariate statistical methods (correspondence and principal components analysis), and these assemblages were found to be segregated by a thermal gradient. Exotic fish were dominant in conditions of low environmental quality, while native species were restricted to areas with better quality of water and geographic isolation. Exotic taxa such as Amatitlania nigrofasciata, Pterigloplictys disjunctivus, Pterigloplictys pardalis, Poeciliopsis gracilis and Heterandria bimaculata, have achieved the degree of invasive due to the fact that they are distributed of abundant manner in the entire hydrological system.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the PROMEP-SEP Federal Government program, who provided funds for the development of work. The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Wildlife management (Spanish acronym: SEMARNAT) who awarded registration number MOR-CC-243-201, to the fish collection during this study. We want to thank Eduardo Domínguez and Manuel Rivas for their help in the field work, and finally to Gabriela Beltrán for her help in the laboratory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB), Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Av. Universidad 1001, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

    Humberto Mejía-Mojica & Topiltzin Contreras-MacBeath

  2. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Km.106 carr. Tijuana-Ensenada, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

    Gorgonio Ruiz-Campos

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  1. Humberto Mejía-Mojica
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  2. Topiltzin Contreras-MacBeath
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  3. Gorgonio Ruiz-Campos
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Correspondence to Humberto Mejía-Mojica.

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Mejía-Mojica, H., Contreras-MacBeath, T. & Ruiz-Campos, G. Relationship between environmental and geographic factors and the distribution of exotic fishes in tributaries of the balsas river basin, Mexico. Environ Biol Fish 98, 611–621 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0298-8

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